In 2008, I attended the launch of the computing grid for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. I covered it for the blog On Research.

[Editor's note: Ohio State science writer Pam Frost Gorder was one of dozens of international journalists invited last week to tour the international physics laboratory at CERN in Switzerland and learn about the GRID, the global computer network designed to handle the massive amounts of data flowing from the world's newest particle collider. This is the first of four entries about that trip.]

Streams of protons will circulate through the smallest loop, and gradually spin faster and faster. When the beam is spinning fast enough, a series of magnetic switches diverts it to the next largest loop where the speed increases even more.

Ultimately, the beam should circle the 17-mile wide LHC ring, at close to the speed of light. Or, it could be diverted to one of the many other experiments housed at CERN.

The decision to start the beam, and where to send it, is made by physicists and computer scientists working together in this control room. Surrounded by readouts on flat panel displays, they monitor the beam’s “health” around the clock, the way critical care nurses monitor a patient’s vital signs.

More than 50 countries have spent collective billions to build and run these experiments so it’s fair to say that the particle beam’s operators are under some pressure.

Pierre Charrue, head of CERN’s Control Infrastructure Group, said that the success of the LHC will depend on ergonomics. The scientists must be comfortable and able to focus on their work. They have to be able to read conditions in the accelerator quickly, and make good decisions. So he and his team designed the control room with a high ceiling, bright picture windows, and curved workspaces. Sophisticated soundproofing looks like textured wallpaper, in colors of blue and sand that evoke a blissful day on the beach.

The result? A pleasant place to work.

“You could share that room with 100 other people, and still work as quietly as if you were alone,” he told me from the glassed-in observation deck. “The screens are all color coded, so that you get all the information you need in a glance — even if the screen is all the way across the room.” Now two other accelerator labs — the ITER to be built in southern France and Fermilab in Illinois — are working with Charrue to redesign their own workspaces.

As we took pictures from above, I asked him whether the technicians and scientists below ever feel like fish in a fishbowl. He said they were used to it, although they looked a little embarrassed to me.

Actually, CERN is a popular field trip site for school kids from all over Switzerland, France, and Germany, according to Ohio State physicist Stan Durkin. Staffers have to endure an endless parade of wide-eyed spectators.

No wonder one research group decided to post a sign: “Please do not feed the physicists.”__Pam Frost Gorde

[Editor's note: Ohio State science writer Pam Frost Gorder was one of dozens of international journalists invited last week to tour the international physics laboratory at CERN in Switzerland and learn about the GRID, the global computer network designed to handle the massive amounts of data flowing from the world's newest particle collider. This is the second of four entries about that trip.]

But the sensitive electronics on the ATLAS and CMS detectors record those particles’ passing, thousands of times per second. Ohio State graduate students Greyson Williams and Phillip Killewald showed me a slow-motion visualization in the CMS control center, and still the detectors lining the massive CMS cylinder were blinking like lights on a Christmas tree.

The particles aren’t a nuisance. Because they stream through the detector in perfectly straight lines, the scientists use them like giant rulers to gauge the alignment of detector plates. They can then program software to compensate for plates that are slightly out of alignment. __Pam Frost Gorder

[Editor's note: Ohio State science writer Pam Frost Gorder was one of dozens of international journalists invited last week to tour the international physics laboratory at CERN in Switzerland and learn about the GRID, the global computer network designed to handle the massive amounts of data flowing from the world's newest particle collider. This is the third of four entries about that trip.]

October 3, 3008

With all the advances in flat-panel TV screens and microelectronics, I keep waiting for the invention of “the box that does everything” — you know, the giant box you see on the wall in science fiction movies. It’s a TV screen, video phone, and computer interface all rolled into one. And it works on voice command.

“Computer, show me sunrise over Mauna Kea, play Beethoven’s fifth symphony, and order that book from Amazon that I wanted… Oh, and call Mom.” And bam! There it is — whatever you want.

While at GridFest, I learned that my dream “box that does everything” may already be here. It’s just a lot smaller than I envisioned.

More than 30 countries worldwide are tied into the grid, each donating computing power to store and analyze data from the experiment. More than a dozen remote LHC computing centers around the world participated in the ceremony via videoconference, and regardless of whether the site was in Canada, Russia, China, or Australia, they all looked basically the same — a roomful of computers wired together in parallel.

But what about developing countries where scientists don’t have access to that kind of expensive facility? How will they benefit from grid computing?

Surprisingly, Jones said that scientists in developing countries will likely use cell phones to connect to the grid. Today’s multi-purpose phones can store and run applications, he explained, and even some of the most out-of-the-way regions of the planet now have cellular coverage. A researcher can send commands through the phone, and download the results from LHC partner centers in other countries.

This trend has been taking shape for a while, with cell phones and PDAs becoming portable libraries for music and books. Michael Hart, the creator of Project Gutenberg, once told me that the future of e-books was in cell phones. Kids today, he said, are adept at reading text on the tiny computer screens.

[Editor's note: Ohio State science writer Pam Frost Gorder was one of dozens of international journalists invited last week to tour the international physics laboratory at CERN in Switzerland and learn about the GRID, the global computer network designed to handle the massive amounts of data flowing from the world's newest particle collider. This is the last of four entries about that trip.]

October 3, 2008

Les Robertson, CERN scientist and father of the LHC computing grid, is retiring. Seven years ago, he was the one who got the idea to link distant computer clusters from many countries together, to make data processing for the LHC more manageable.

But that idea has taken on a life of its own, and now there is talk of making the grid permanent, even beyond the decade-plus expected lifespan of the LHC. Other data-heavy sciences, particularly climate science and microbiology, could make good use of the grid.

So after the LHC grid was officially unveiled, and Robertson’s staff presented him with a bouquet of flowers and an ovation, he and I walked through the art exhibit currently displayed in the facility’s entry hall. The LHC grid, he said, turned out almost exactly as he had originally envisioned it, although he didn’t realize just how challenging it would be to manage the countless people and research groups around the world required to make it happen. He’s traveled the world many times over, visiting computing sites of the grid’s many partners.

He remembered visiting Ohio State — one of the “Tier 2″ universities on the grid. Robertson noticed the close linkage between the university and the Ohio Supercomputer Center, and remarked that our physicists and computer scientists worked together in a way that clearly benefitted the LHC. Tier 0 (CERN itself) and Tier 1 (a handful of sites around the world) are mainly data storage and distribution centers, but the Tier 2 centers are where the real action happens, he said — where scientists actually analyze the LHC data and make discoveries.

But for all this travels he has one regret: He never saw the rest of those countries he visited — the people and cultures beyond the computer centers in universities and laboratories.

His retirement, he promised, would carry him out of this “virtual world” and into the real world.